Showing results by narrator "Malcolm Hillgartner" in All Categories

Each story explores a different twist of madness, murder, and melancholy, from the horror of being buried alive in "The Fall of the House of Usher" to the desperate case of two gruesome killings in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The heartbeat of paranoia in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the razor-sharp claustrophobia in "The Pit and the Pendulum," and a mourner's torment in "The Raven" reveal - and revel in - life's creepiest and craziest. These tales are not for the faint of heart or the thin of skin.

Most Evil II is Steve Hodel's follow-up investigation (2009-2015) into his father's potential murders and introduces new evidence and additional linkage obtained by him over the past six years. Included in that evidence is the solving of the Zodiac's 45-year-cryptic cipher, which gives us the answer to the question asked in Most Evil: Were Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac the same serial killer?

Federal judge Edward Lamport is no stranger to controversy and danger. Nine months into his tenure, he's received two death threats and is under the protection of US Marshals. But when he receives a plea for help from a woman with whom he had a brief romance twenty-five years earlier, he must face a peril of a different sort, one that involves his long-lost son, Carlos.

This is the true story of an unknown American politician who played a critical role in ending centuries of conflict in Northern Ireland. Without the president's permission, and breaking every conventional rule about how to deal with terrorists, former congressman Bruce Morrison helped end a conflict that most observers thought would continue indefinitely.

Oscar Ogilvie is living with his dad in a house at the end of Lucifer Street, in Cairo, Illinois, when world events change his life forever. The great stock market crash has rippled across the country, and the bank takes over their home - along with all their cherished model trains. Oscar’s dad is forced to head west in search of work, and Oscar must move in with his no-nonsense aunt Carmen. Only a mysterious drifter helps alleviate Oscar’s loneliness.

From award-winning author James M. Tabor come these two dark tales about the power of loss and the cost of greed. In "Antiques", a father haunted by guilt over his son's suicide is drawn toward another world.

Pat, a Vietnam vet finished with marriage and booze, gets his dose of society sitting alone and dry at the local bar. One afternoon, watching a pre-season Red Sox game, he ends up next to a group of loudmouth writers gathered around a man in a wheelchair. The writers get under Pat's skin, and he says something lousy to the big-shot who, it turns out, is also a big-shot writer.

Just before Thanksgiving in 1950, five months into the Korean War, General MacArthur flew to American positions in the north and grandly announced an "end-the-war-by-Christmas" offensive despite recent intervention by Mao's Chinese, who would soon trap tens of thousands of US troops poised toward the Yalu River border.

When Thomas Edison asks for information, most feel compelled to give it. Not University of Washington professor Benjamin Bradshaw. Not when the question concerns a device conceived in anger and harnessed for murder. Bradshaw hopes the mysterious invention remains lost in Elliott Bay, eluding the search of deep-sea divers.

What defines Boston? Its history? Its landmarks? Its sports teams and shrines? Perhaps the question should be, who defines Boston? From Henry David Thoreau to Dennis Lehane, Boston has been beloved by many of America's greatest writers, and there is no better group of men and women to capture the heart and soul of the Hub. In Our Boston, editor Andrew Blauner has collected both original and reprinted essays from Boston-area writers past and present, all celebrating the city they love.

Our One Common Country explores the most critical meeting of the Civil War. Given short shrift or overlooked by many historians, the Hampton Roads Conference of 1865 was a crucial turning point in the War between the States. In this well written and highly documented book, James B. Conroy describes in fascinating detail what happened when leaders from both sides came together to try to end the hostilities. The meeting was meant to end the fighting on peaceful terms.

This contemporary puzzle mystery features Rep and Melissa Pennyworth, a bantering, plucky couple. Rep, a trademark and copyright lawyer, has followed Melissa to Milwaukee in her quest for an assistant professorship. Then, on the night before the Army-Navy game, a midshipman is found stark naked and barely alive in a cheap motel near the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Alex Ostermann lives in an apartment block with his family in East Berlin. He hates the regime and his parents are worried that Alex and his sister, Geli, aren't displaying the correct ‘socialist attitude'. After school they are often followed. Friends suddenly break off relations. The final straw comes when Alex is arrested.

In the early years of the 21st century, humans have advanced step by slow step into space. Constantly monitoring the heavens, they have discovered that certain asteroids have changed their orbits - and are on a collision course with Earth. Urgent action is required, but politics and a worldwide financial crash are getting in the way. To save humanity from disaster, two of Earth’s prominent families, a host of political movers and shakers, and dedicated pilots and space travelers of all stripes must band together.

Christmas 1941 came little more than two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The shock - in some cases overseas, elation - was worldwide. While Americans attempted to go about celebrating as usual, the reality of the just-declared war was on everybody’s mind. United States troops on Wake Island were battling a Japanese landing force and, in the Philippines, losing the fight to save Luzon. In Japan, the Pearl Harbor strike force returned to Hiroshima Bay and toasted its sweeping success.

Patrick Henry Hughes was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him without eyes and physically disabled. But he was also blessed with exceptional musical talent, able to play the piano at the age of two. Now, at age 19, he is a nationally known pianist, singer, and trumpeter who has performed at the Kennedy Center. But he's best known for playing in the University of Louisville marching band, while his devoted father pushes him in formation in his wheelchair.

A starlet's plot to blackmail a film-studio executive results in her murder. Only the "trouble chaser" can clear her volatile lover and solve the crime.

When University of Washington Professor Benjamin Bradshaw discovers the dead body of a despised colleague inside the Faraday cage of the electric machine, his carefully controlled world shatters.

Set in the working-class district of Benfica in Lisbon, The Piano Cemetery tells the story of a family, and especially of the hopes and fears of the fathers who pass the baton of the generations on to their sons. The Lazaro family are cabinet-makers who would rather be piano-makers.

On an urban battleground dangerously divided along racial lines, probation officer Steve Baum is desperately struggling to hold on to the last remaining shreds of his idealism, until Darryl King invades his world. A deranged young sociopath, one of the most bloodthirsty creations of a diseased society, Darryl has come to drag Baum along with him into an inescapable morass of terror and corruption.